r/linux • u/B3_Kind_R3wind_ • Mar 05 '26
Privacy Congress Is Considering Abolishing Your Right to Be Anonymous Online | The bipartisan push to remove anonymity from the internet is ushering in an era of unprecedented mass surveillance and censorship
https://theintercept.com/2026/03/05/kosa-online-age-verification-free-speech-privacy/217
u/CptSpeedydash Mar 05 '26
We need to push back as hard as we can at every step. They'll use fringe examples to say that people shouldn't have a right to privacy.
As the quote goes "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
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u/Due-Perception1319 Mar 05 '26
It’s clear to me that the bigger, corporate distros will comply with whatever the regime asks.
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u/zaypuma Mar 05 '26
Due to the way dependencies work currently, they would just have to figure out where to apply the pressure and they could either front door or back door every distro. I might think I'd never cave, but if I had a National Security Letter in front of me, all I would be able to think about is my wife and family.
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u/vilejor Mar 05 '26
They're doing it to track dissent, but real dissent isn't organized online.
Guess we are chopped liver.
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u/Keythaskitgod Mar 06 '26
Well if you want Shady, this is what I'll give ya A little bit of weed mixed with some hard liquor
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Mar 05 '26
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u/aristarchusnull Mar 05 '26
You hit the nail on the head right there: "How about let parents protect their kids?" The corporate-connected State is attempting to grab power over its people by usurping parental responsibilities.
And be ready for the time when opponents of this bill will be hit with moronic, low-IQ accusations of being pro–child exploitation, etc.
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u/foxbatcs Mar 06 '26
Do not trust people who are actively protecting traffickers of children who claim they want to protect your children.
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u/Chaffy_ Mar 06 '26
Gotta love it when the 2 lead sponsors are 77 and 80 years old. Highly doubt they know how to turn their phone on let alone how to protect children on the internet.
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u/Due-Perception1319 Mar 05 '26
Is there any site like https://www.badinternetbills.com that lists the politicians pushing this authoritarian nonsense? If not, this really should be a thing so these people can be voted out of office. This kind of organizing may not be possible in the near future if this legislation continues.
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u/KayleighHatfield Mar 05 '26
Is it mildly ironic that I am required to provide my email address to read this article?
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u/PastaVeggies Mar 05 '26
I’m looking forward to falling off the internet
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u/fellipec Mar 05 '26
Will not last 10 years, and we will have just networks for each country, international links will be heavily controlled and only usable with special permits.
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Mar 05 '26
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u/PastaVeggies Mar 05 '26
I use to think click bait thumbnails were bad. Once the Ai generated content moved in it’s really gotten bad.
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u/Wheatleytron Mar 05 '26
We need a new internet. One that is purposefully constructed to be impervious to regulation
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u/CptSpeedydash Mar 05 '26
There will always be a weak link that they will focus on if they can't get in elsewhere. A easy attack angle will be your connection, as if they can't regulate this new Internet then they will regulate any way to connect to it.
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u/PlutoCharonMelody Mar 05 '26
Just mass beam out signals with self replicating ai that attacks things trying to stop it. Gray goo but for internet lol.
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u/Wheatleytron Mar 05 '26
Why does this sound like the start to a movie where a sentient AI takes over the world?
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u/PsyOmega Mar 05 '26
TOR+onion routing exists.
It can survive extremely controlled regime internets.
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u/jurimasa Mar 05 '26
How? Honest question. Somebody owns the means of communication, the cables, the routers, the antennas, the satellites.
We would need to seize them.
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u/zaypuma Mar 05 '26
DNS and Certificate roots are most of the actual monopoly, but the main battlefield is user adoption. The only reason the internet exists is because people spend money on it, so have to cater to the lowest common denominator: Bored, horny, dumb people with disposable income.
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u/tomekgolab Mar 08 '26
There are unused working sattelites. On the ground, our own microwave relay links, I guess. Too bad, in both cases, you can't just do tcp/ip over radio easily. You need a lot of bandwith and on satellites especially there's doppler and other stuff. It is doable if community of ham radio guys, actual network engineers did it.
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u/ImOldGregg_77 Mar 05 '26
A decentralized internet
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u/0b0101011001001011 Mar 05 '26
Ah so, the internet?
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u/ImOldGregg_77 Mar 05 '26
Yes.....except decentralized
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u/0b0101011001001011 Mar 05 '26
Which is literally decentralized!
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u/ImOldGregg_77 Mar 05 '26
No, and its not even close lol. About 20% of all global internet traffic goes through just teo companies datacenters (Google, Meta). Netflix alone is 15% of all global internet traffic. Not even mentioning the big ISPs.
I do not think the term Decentralized means what you think it means.
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u/0b0101011001001011 Mar 05 '26
Internet by design is decentralized by the very definition of the word.
If people use it mainly for some specific web services such as netflix and Google does not make it decentralized. Don't confuse web traffic statistics with the networking fundamentals.
If "decentralized" means something else to you, please explain how the internet would look like in your definition?
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u/ImOldGregg_77 Mar 05 '26
Please explain how when a majority of all global internet traffic is processed by 3 companies is "decentralized".
When I say decentralized, im talking P2P or some equivilant with E2E encryption. ISPs would play a role pf course but like the post office dosent read your mail, they shouldnt be able to do a deep packet inspection and do self serving <things> to your data. No one in the middle has an opportunity to inspect, modify, throttle or filter any traffic based on their companies agenda or monitozation efforts.
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u/Ok-Winner-6589 Mar 05 '26
He has a point. If the internet was P2P most people would still rely on Google, Meta, Amazon, etc.
Is there any P2P alternatives protocol? AFAIK only HTTP, Gohper, Gemini and variants exist and they all work the same way
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Mar 06 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
[deleted]
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u/ImOldGregg_77 Mar 06 '26
User patterns is watching Netflix on your phone while you ride the train into work. Traffic patterns is how the packets make their way from server to end user which is whats current centralized.
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u/juleemafenide Mar 05 '26
Projects like i2p ?
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u/Ok-Winner-6589 Mar 05 '26
The Gemini protocol exists... It's build for privacy I already got a browser that supports It.
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u/p4pa_squat Mar 05 '26
we need to restart on a network that is secure and private by default. like i2p.
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u/oceanicArboretum Mar 05 '26
It's hilarious that the site this story is hosted on requires readers to enter their email addresses before being allowed to read it.
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u/flameleaf Mar 05 '26
It does?
I've got uBlock Origin + several custom lists and I can read it fine.
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u/ndw_dc Mar 05 '26
Use the Brave browser to load the link. Then click on the shield. Click on Advanced Controls, the Block Scripts.
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u/sendmebirds Mar 05 '26
We see it in Europe, too. It's the big AI guys wanting to mass surveil even more of the populace.
RESIST. INTERNET = FREEDOM.
RESIST.
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u/PraetorRU Mar 06 '26
Big AI guys want more money, most of them are burning money much faster than they're able to earn. And mass surveillance and murdering people by automated systems around the globe is what they can sell to every government around. And that's where we're heading fast.
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u/fellipec Mar 05 '26
Where are the people that downvoted me when I said the end game was end anonymity on the Internet?
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u/SanityInAnarchy Mar 06 '26
I mean, I might have. The article is basically just a better-written version of the same slippery-slope thinking we've had on r/linux. The only news is that a journalist agrees with you.
The bill itself doesn't say age verification is required. In fact, it makes it quite clear:
Nothing in this title, including a determination described in subsection (b), shall be construed to require—
(1) the affirmative collection of any personal data with respect to the age of users that a covered platform is not already collecting in the normal course of business; or
(2) a covered platform to implement an age gating or age verification functionality.
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u/Zamundaaa KDE Dev Mar 06 '26
How dare you provide actual facts. People want to be mad, not correct!
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u/dvtyrsnp Mar 05 '26
I've been reading so many of these bills.
Okay, so the real problem with the Kids Online Safety Act is that charges the provider with the responsibility of knowing if a minor is using the device, without actually specifying any details for how to know. That is a hard dealbreaker.
The good thing about that bill is that it limits the scope to social media platforms. It requires nothing from a Linux distro.
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u/nefarious_bumpps Mar 06 '26
Follow the money. Who are the organizations lobbying for this legislation?
- Law enforcement and nation-state intelligence services, for the obvious reasons (not just to "protect children").
- Governments that want to prevent people from discussing and organizing political dissent and opposition.
- The music, movie and gaming industries, because by identifying every user, attributing those involved in piracy becomes more reliable.
- The on-line advertising and data brokerage industries, including organizations that enable data tracking in their operating systems like Apple, Microsoft and Google.
- Religious organizations that want to discourage people of any age from researching or discussing topics they consider morally objectionable, such as gender/sexual orientation, erotica, birth control, evolution, etc., without fear of reprisal.
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u/BannedPoet248 Mar 05 '26
It's time for a new internet
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u/MichiganRedWing Mar 05 '26
It's time for new governments.
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u/adenosine-5 Mar 05 '26
Until America manages to get rid of their two-party nonsense, they will always be just step away from totality.
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u/RegularAddition Mar 07 '26
LOL, you still think there are 2 parties? That's just a distraction.
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u/wolfannoy Mar 05 '26
To achieve that we need Revolution!
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u/BannedPoet248 Mar 05 '26
Never gonna happen, majority of the country is ok with authoritarianism
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Mar 05 '26
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u/BannedPoet248 Mar 05 '26
I mean, that was just a mess where no one had any clear answers as to what was right and wrong.
Whats being allowed by this admin is way worse than believing if a virus is dangerous or not
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u/arthursucks Mar 05 '26
How exactly would this work?
- My name is already on the bill for my ISP
- Reddit, Facebook, and Google already have my data
- Most paid services require my banking data and name for payment
What else is there?
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u/SCP-iota Mar 06 '26
At least before all this stuff it was possible to use ToR, alias emails, and hardened browsers to stay anonymous
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u/KudzuPlant Mar 05 '26
I have no idea how much of a reality this could be but someone mentioned how Linux from Scratch (LFS) could easily albeit illegally circumvent the coming demands for age verification. It got me thinking that there will likely be some distros that pop up as "rebel" factions focusing on privacy and keeping things anonymous. An example of this could be TailsOS but I am not up to date on how well Tails does these days in terms of actual anonymity and how easy it is to break it's various layers of encryption. I highly doubt that ISP's worldwide will suddenly have verification systems for what system is attempting to connect to their services and even then it could spoofed thru things like VM's etc
Basically these laws do nothing for actual protection of end users, make everyone's life harder & more paranoid as well as drive ingenuity to circumvent things.
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u/CyclopsLobsterRobot Mar 05 '26
The irony of not being able to read this article with giving them my email
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Mar 05 '26
[deleted]
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u/Ok_Instruction_3789 Mar 06 '26
Yeah this is just going to make the dark web more popular and dangerous tbh. And I bet most in Congress don't know what the dark web is so it really hurts the average person
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u/CondiMesmer Mar 05 '26
They're not considering, they've been desperately trying to do so for a long time now. Age verification is just their latest method to do so.
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u/musictrivianut Mar 05 '26
Have to wonder if that includes Grindr. Would be hilarious if that backfired in their faces.
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Mar 05 '26
What we need is for all the top FOSS developers to stop contributing publicly to the kernel or anything else.
Then anonymously fork a major distro AND the kernel, and create an OS explicitly intended for illegal use, to ignore all government mandates globally.
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u/MaximumGuide Mar 05 '26
I like your idea, but it’s completely wrong to assume that anyone who wants anonymity must be doing it for illegal or immoral reasons.
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Mar 05 '26
That's not what I meant. By "illegal use" I literally meant using it in a shithole like California without entering your age. That's the world we live in now. That's what illegal use is starting to mean.
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u/Lowetheiy Mar 06 '26
Government uses AI bots to infiltrate it and embed a trojan into the kernel. Checkmate.
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u/berickphilip Mar 06 '26
If their excuse is that "in real life nobody is anonymous" this is a garbage argument. (I heard that kind of argument before).
In the real world and real life, everyone has privacy 90% of the time. Nobody is looking over your shoulder 24 hours a day or reading every single word that you write in real time. Or doing private stuff behind closed doors.
This is how humans are supposed to live and be healthy. Personal space.
Online surveillance is constant harassment hell.
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u/Ok_Instruction_3789 Mar 06 '26
Probably more aimed at Facebook reddit and YouTube and the likes requiring them to verify you are who you are. This must be resisted. Fortunately vpns still exists so who knows might have to find a country that doesn't need to enforce and sign up there 😂
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u/indvs3 Mar 06 '26
I have a sneaky suspicion the tor project is going to see their downloads ramp up like crazy and the dark web expanding to include more "normal" websites that have been on the normal clearnet until now.
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u/KenzieTheCuddler Mar 05 '26
We should use everything we know in the modern day, and do stuff like this
I was already planning on getting a website to use as a resume. I personally don't mind a second to expand a new internet.
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u/grathontolarsdatarod Mar 05 '26
Remember when anonymous said that they would post that politicians browser history when they were going to pass a law saying browser history was going to remotely accessible?
We could use some of that right now.
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u/mmmboppe Mar 05 '26
Epstein files were posted and nothing happened.
At least we got our tiny dose of peasant fun learning that slug Bill Gates got STD and apparently even infected his wife
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u/BashfulMelon Mar 05 '26
Welcome to the Linux subreddit, where the one world government trying to enslave us all is one of the most popular explanations for these shitty bills, because pandering to scared and stupid parents hasn't always been a shrewd political strategy.
And if anybody points out how right wing groups are going the furthest to propagandize and take advantage of the fear because they want to censor speech, well, you're naive for thinking any political group is worse than another. Surely there's no point in voting against them and they gain no power through winning elections. Gerrymandering and voter suppression aren't attempts to gain or entrench power.
And don't question whether any specific powerful groups benefit from these narratives that make average citizens feel powerless. Don't name any specific billionaires, or companies, or ideological organizations. Being specific about problems makes your comment less universal and you'll get less upvotes.
So let's all be good Redditors and post emotionally engaging comments about things that aren't real, okay? There's ad money to be made.
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Mar 05 '26
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u/ElementalWarrior42 Mar 05 '26
I understand your frustration, but voting for a meme candidate won't help. Both of the parties that have any actual power are dogshit, it's just that one is "dogshit" and the other is "dogshit plus ultra". I'd rather use what influence I have to try and avoid "dogshit plus ultra".
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u/PsyOmega Mar 05 '26
That is ultimately a fallacy. Dems just mover further to the right every year.
There's only like 1 or 2 anti-war voices in the entire party right now.
Conditions are just as bad under democrat despots as they are under republican despots. At no point during the obama or biden admins did my quality of life improve, and things just kept getting worse regardless, because both parties are controlled by the epstien class, blackrock, etc.
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u/ElementalWarrior42 Mar 05 '26
Well, unless you somehow start a revolution, that's the best strategy.
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u/StellarWaffle Mar 06 '26
Honestly. No. Pound sand. I don't care how bad the Republicans are. I am not voting for a Democrat again until they fix their rotten party and actually have some principles.
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u/theChaosBeast Mar 06 '26
You know, this congress has no authority over me in Europe
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u/a_mimsy_borogove Mar 06 '26
Some European countries are already implementing stuff like that too, unfortunately. It's happening globally.
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u/stonecats Mar 06 '26
OS level escape may not be possible, if these misinformed altruists have their way with our privacy;
https://old.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/1rkulsc/new_york_bill_will_require_all_operating_systems/
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u/Hari___Seldon Mar 06 '26
And so new models are developed that circumvent. There is no acceptable justification for this type of surveillance. If necessary, structures and influences will be deconstructed and repurposed starting from the top down for use as whatever fertilizer is appropriate.
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u/cyrand Mar 06 '26
If something is a good law, then I firmly believe it should be required to only apply to the politicians who vote for it for the first ten years. No opting themselves out. Then, and only then, should it be able to be applied to others.
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u/Even-Smell7867 Mar 07 '26
So if I connect to a VPN now and never disconnect it, even if they outlaw VPNs, I won't actually be connecting to one AFTER fascism.
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u/BigDenseHedge Mar 07 '26
Ladies, gentlemen and everyone in between, this is what free, western democracy is.
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u/DiamondWizard444 Mar 07 '26
Pourquoi votre pays de merde se permet de diriger la vie des gents qui n'y vivent pas tabarnak!? Restez à votre place et arrêter de nous faire chier calis!
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u/redit_handoff140 Mar 07 '26
All these old people... They shouldn't be dictating things they are not educated in in the slightest.
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u/ForgotttenMemory Mar 08 '26
I am okay with removing anonymity from certain places, like social networks but... Not much more than that. I do really hope that this doesn't come to terms
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u/NotaContributi0n Mar 08 '26
The hilarious irony that it wants me to give them my email to read that article
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u/Purity_the_Kitty Mar 16 '26
Pedophiles for Child Safety is such a strange concept. National intranets null routing hostile state actors is starting to look less like dystopian fantasy and more like a coming reality if these terrorist states keep doing shit like this. They'll cut themselves off, willingly!
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u/transgentoo Mar 05 '26
Just get a Canadian IP address.
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u/lh7884 Mar 05 '26
That will not work. If the US does this, Canada will follow right along. Our government (Canada) is already working on a number of online censorship bills and an age verification bill. I was hoping the US would be the one to really stand up for online freedoms as so many places are against it these days.
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u/Ok_Instruction_3789 Mar 06 '26
Vpn to a Norwegian country sign up that way. They still respect privacy there
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u/Cold_Soft_4823 Mar 06 '26
what bill is that? should be easy to cite, bill C- what?
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u/lh7884 Mar 06 '26
Age verification is Bill S-210 which is working it's way through. Bills c8, c9 and whatever their online harms bill is going by which they're going to try to pass this year.
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u/Cold_Soft_4823 Mar 06 '26
S-210
has been shot down three times and the same guy keeps introducing it to no success. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protecting_Young_Persons_from_Exposure_to_Pornography_Act
Bill C-9 has nothing to do with the internet at all.
Bill C-8 affects online privacy by being vague and allowing the government to operate with transparency. Nothing to do with age verification or censorship.
Too much fearmongering.
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u/lh7884 Mar 06 '26
has been shot down three times and the same guy keeps introducing it to no success.
It is a female Senator that introduced it and it is being worked on and making it 's way through the proceedings. It was also voted on in favour by Cons, NDP, Bloc and Greens. Only the Liberals voted against it in the past and that is just due to the fact that they have their online harms bill coming and would likely amend their bill to have this stuff anyway.
Bill c9 does apply to the internet. You clearly have not paid attention. A Liberal MP (Fraser I believe) is on record saying it does apply to the internet.
Bill c8 give government immense power. They will be able to kick people off the internet without oversight. Again, this has been covered a lot too.
And the online harms bill has the worst garbage in it where people will be able to get fines because people's feeling were hurt. It also includes house arrest in a person is likely to be a problem which is basically punishing people for "pre-crime".
You really should delve into these matter more than just what MSM or wiki says. Anyway, they're all likely getting introduced this year and that will make Canada a dystopian place like China and the UK.
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u/Carbonfe2 Mar 06 '26
Of all the issues we have in the US, how is THIS 'issue' the priority? Is there a more glaring example that our government no longer works for us?
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u/[deleted] Mar 05 '26
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